CV in a nutshell

I am Professor of Astrophysics and Cosmology at the Institute of Astronomy (IoA), University of Cambridge. My research interests span a broad range of topics including 21cm cosmology at Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization, first stars and binaries, structure formation, nature of dark matter, transient phenomena such as Fast Radio Bursts, etc.

I completed my Ph.D. in Physics in 2013 at Tel Aviv University. Prior to that, I earned B.Sc. in Physics & B.A. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion in 2006. After the completion of the PhD, I held several prestigious fellowships including

a Junior Research Chair Fellow at the International Center for Fundamental Physics at the Ecole Normale Superieure (2013-2015),
an ITC Fellowship at the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (2015-2018),
Senior Research Fellowship at KICC (2018),
and the University Research Fellowship (2019-2023).

After a brief stay as a Lecturer and a URF at Sussex University (2019), I moved to the IoA in October 2019. I joined Magdalene college in 2022.

Career path

As a student I tried different fields including electrical engineering and signal processing, experimental solid state physics (worked for a year in a BEC lab where I helped establish the experiment and obtain the first BEC cloud), string theory and cosmology and astrophysics. Through this seemingly random walk I converged and discovered my passion – the first billion years of cosmic history!

Now I am most fascinated about 21-cm cosmology and interested in the development of innovative tools/methods for 21cm data interpretation. The 21-cm signal can be used to uncover the Universe’s deepest and darkest secrets. I am the creator and developer of 21cmSPACE, a state-of-the-art semi-numeric code predicting the neutral hydrogen radio 21-cm signal from cosmic dawn and reionization on large cosmological scales. I started this work in 2010 as a PhD student and for many years was the only hands-on developer. Despite the poor computational resources available then, I implemented many astrophysical and cosmological processes and explored their impacts on the theoretical 21-cm signal. These signatures were poorly studied previously and my results cleared some misconceptions. E.g. I discovered that, for a realistic population of high-redshift X-ray binaries, heating of cosmic gas is inefficient due to high photon energies. Thus, the gas is colder than the CMB during reionization – a surprising result as “hot” reionization was the standard assumption at that time. The “cold” scenario implies that the processes of heating and reionization happen simultaneously resulting in a broader-than-expected range of predicted 21-cm signals.

Post-PhD I was fortunate to work in the science-rich environments at ENS (Paris) and the CfA (Harvard). Access to HPC allowed me to create the (then) largest compilation of the high-redshift 21-cm simulations in the world, and survey the unexplored space of astrophysical processes. The large datasets made my theoretical findings useful for observers: I generated the 264-model catalogue which we utilized for the first astrophysical interpretation of data from the SARAS2 experiment, later I created a bank of 30,000 models used for numerous purposes including training the first-ever Neural Network (NN) emulator of the global 21-cm signal which we employed in parameter estimation pipelines (work I co-led on EDGES High-Band data interpretation). Since then, emulators have become standard in the field.

I am also fascinated by the dark matter phenomenon and enjoy thinking about the ways we can probe its particle physics nature. Space is a huge particle physics laboratory! I am particularly interested in the Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) model which can be realized in string theory and results in unique large-scale structure. I initiated a collaboration (main developer Dr Mocz) which produced the first simulations of galaxy formation in FDM. We found that in

FDM stars could first form in dense filaments, unlike in the cold dark matter model where the first sites of star formation are small dark matter halos.

I established my research group in 2019 in Cambridge where the development of 21cmSPACE, the inference methodology and FDM modelling continues. We implement increasingly more sophisticated and realistic processes, explore new statistical tools (using e.g. Bayesian inference, normalizing flows), develop synergies (radio/X-rays, radio/JWST etc.). E.g. we pioneered synergistic analysis of interferometric and radiometer data (HERA-SARAS3) showing that both datasets tighten the posteriors of astrophysical parameters in unique ways.

Collaborations

I take part in multiple collaborations with 21-cm observers (LEDA, NenuFAR, HERA, LOFAR, SARAS2/3, MIST, REACH, EDGES, ALO). I led the first 21-cm science case in the cornerstone proposal for NenuFAR (2013) which is now taking cosmic dawn data; I drove the interpretation of the first cosmologically “interesting” data of SARAS2, which we recently re-analyzed using Bayesian inference, and the first analysis of SARAS3; I lead the REACH collaboration theory group (since 2018), and I am a member of the SKA EoR working group and the UK SKAO Science Committee. Outside the 21-cm community, I have on-going collaborations on the aspects of high-redshift star formation, radio transients, X-ray binaries, JWST UVLFs, dark matter, etc.

Research dissemination and other contributions

I have written 120 research articles, presented my research at approx. 70 conferences as an invited speaker and gave more than 100 invited seminars/colloquia/lectures in diverse environments (conferences on particle physics, high-redshift X-ray observations/theory, galaxy formation, atomic physics, dark matter, and radio transients). I often organize conferences, serve on panels, review proposals, and referee publications (for 10 different recognized journals).

Broader community

Born in Kazakhstan and having witnessed the collapse of the Soviet educational system, I understand the importance of helping underrepresented communities access education. I participate in academic Widening Participation activities in my college and I am the chair of the Summer Student Committee at the Institute of Astronomy, with Widening Participation being one of our goals. I am also a well-being advocate and the member of the wellbeing committee of the IoA. I reach out to the public in various ways including multiple press releases, public articles (Magdalene Matters 2023, Scientific American in prep.), and university colloquia. I often give public lectures (UCL Physics Society 2024, yearly talks at Cambridge University Astronomical Society, St Paul’s Girls’ School). I enjoy talking to journalists (Physics Today, Nature, Scientific American, VICE) as well as random people about astronomy (friends on the way to a climbing wall, strangers on a plane).

Outside of the academic environment